| |
 | Freedom to Speak |
| MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT |
| VETERANS SPEAK OUT |
| We Got STUFF to Say! |
| In The News |
| IN THE NEWS II - KATRINA |
| Photo Gallery |
| Mail Call |
| The Flip Side |
| Resources |
 | HOME |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
LINKS:
IN THE NEWS II - KATRINA
|
|
Katrina Victim: Frances Newton RIP
author: Dave Lindorff
e-mail: dlindorff@yahoo.com
Thursday September 15, 2005
Frances Newton:
Executed in Texas
September 14, 2005
A media awash in Katrina stories had no time for a poor black woman being killed by the state in Texas after being railroaded onto death row for a crime she probably never committed.
Frances Newton died Wednesday for Bush's sins.The 40-year-old black woman, executed by the death-obsessed state of Texas last night following a rejection by the US Supreme Court of her attorneys' last-ditch appeal, and after the state's craven and bloodthirsty "pardons and parole" board refused to recommend a stay to Gov. Rick Perry, hardly merited mention in the nation's media, which are now awash in stories about Bush's disaster in New Orleans.
(The story got a 79-word shirt-tail report on page 25 of the New York Times, tucked under a larger story about the House changing rules for hate crimes and child molesters, and next to a story about Hurricane Ophelia.)
Those who are looking for an example of an innocent person's being executed by the state may well find it in the case of this unfortunate woman, who almost certainly was not guilty of killing her husband and child as charged by the state of Texas.
Her guilt was always hard to fathom, with the prosecution claiming that, after killing her alleged victims, Newton somehow left the scene, disposed of the gun, and returned only 30 minutes later with not a trace of blood on her body or clothes, which were all dry--a good trick, as OJ Simpson could attest, given the amount of blood at the scene.
Newton insisted on her innocence of the crime right up to her death, and offered an alternative theory--that her husband and 7-year-old had been killed over a debt to a drug dealer--a theory that her notoriously inept and subsequently suspended attorney Ronald Mock never bothered to investigate.
Newton claimed she had removed a gun from the house after hearing her husband and his brother talking about "some trouble," and she thought it better to get the weapon out of the house.
The trial was rife with improprieties and prosecutorial misconduct--the most egregious of which was that investigators had recovered not one but three identical .25 cal. pistols during their investigation of the case, while the prosecution pretended there had been only one pistol recovered and improperly hid information about the other two from the defense.
It was also rife with the standard neglect and incompetence we've come to expect from underpaid, unmotivated and incompetent public defenders provided to poor and black defendants in such cases--Mock never even brought in Newton's dead husband's parents, who had volunteered to testify on her behalf, and who have steadfastly opposed her execution!
Ironically, when there was more attention being paid to the case back in December 2004, Gov. Perry granted a 120-day stay from execution because of evidentiary questions in the case that raised some doubt about her guilt. Yet the matter of the multiple guns and the outrageous hiding of important exculpatory evidence from defense--which raised much more serious questions about her guilt and about the fairness of her trial--came up subsequent to that stay.
In other words, doubts about Newton's guilt were much greater the day she was executed than they were last year when Perry granted a stay.So what was different between December '04 and September '05? The lack of public and media attention to the case. Katrina and the disastrous Bush response to the deadly flooding of New Orleans simply trumped the story of the first execution of a black woman since the Civil War.
Of course, Newton also got less media attention all along because of her race.
The execution of an admitted female killer, Karla Faye Tucker, by Texas only seven years ago, was page-one news for weeks leading up to her execution. What was different? Certainly not the depravity of the crime, as her bloodthirstiness was stunning. The real difference was her race--Tucker was white--and the fact that Tucker had "found God" while on death row.
So, in a sense one could say Newton is yet another victim of Hurricane Katrina, though given her race and class, it is quite likely she would have died anyway had the hurricane never hit the Gulf Coast. She is, however, clearly also another notch for chief executioner George Bush.
It was while he was governor that her shameful trial unfolded. It was on his watch as governor that her initial efforts to win a new trial were rejected, it was a state pardons and parole board that still bears the marks of Bush's appointments that rejected her plea for her life, and it was in Bush's shadow as the former Governor Death that her latest effort to win a stay or a pardon from Bush's successor, Gov. Perry, that she finally had her date with a lethal injection.
For the rest of this column and other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge) to "This Can't Be Happening!".
homepage: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
New Orleans man denies police officers' allegations
Posted 10/10/2005 2:57 PM Updated 10/11/2005 10:44
Left: Robert Davis lies handcuffed on the sidewalk
after being arrested in the French Quarter of
New Orleans Saturday night. Right: Robert Davis
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A retired elementary teacher who was repeatedly punched in the head by police in an incident caught on videotape said Monday he was not drunk, put up no resistance and was baffled by what happened.
Robert Davis lies handcuffed on the sidewalk after being arrested in the French Quarter of New Orleans Saturday night. By Mel Evans, AP
Robert Davis said he had returned to New Orleans to check on property his family owns in the storm-ravaged city, and was out looking to buy cigarettes when he was beaten and arrested Saturday night in the French Quarter. (Related video: Beating caught on tape)
Police have alleged that the 64-year-old Davis was publicly intoxicated, a charge he strongly denied as he stood on the street corner where the incident played out Saturday.
"I haven't had a drink in 25 years," Davis said. He had stitches beneath his left eye, a bandage on his left hand and complained of soreness in his back and aches in his left shoulder.
A federal civil rights investigation was begun in the case. Davis is black; the three city police officers seen on the tape are white.
But Davis, his attorney and police spokesman Marlon Defillo all said they do not believe race was an issue.
"He does not see it as a racial thing," said Davis' lawyer, Joseph Bruno.
Officers plead not guilty
Two city officers accused in the beating, and a third officer accused of grabbing and shoving an Associated Press Television News producer who helped document the confrontation, pleaded not guilty Monday to battery charges.
Trial was set at a hearing Monday for Jan. 11. Afterward, officers Lance Schilling, Robert Evangelist and S.M. Smith were released on bond. They left without commenting.
Police Superintendent Warren Riley said any misconduct would be dealt with swiftly. He noted the video showed "a portion of that incident."
"The actions that were observed on this video are certainly unacceptable by this department," Riley said.
Two other officials in the video appeared to be federal officers, according to police. Numerous agencies have sent officers to help with patrols in the aftermath of Katrina.
Stephen Kodak, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said none of its agents had been disciplined. He said the FBI was taking part in the Justice Department's civil rights probe.
Asked about curfew
Davis said he had been walking in the French Quarter and approached a mounted police officer to ask about the curfew in the city when another officer interrupted.
"This other guy interfered and I said he shouldn't," Davis said. "I started to cross the street and — bam — I got it. ... All I know is this guy attacked me and said, 'I will kick your ass,' and they proceeded to do it."
He said he did not know why the punches were thrown.
The confrontation came as the New Orleans Police Department — long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption — struggles with the aftermath of Katrina. (Related story:La. beating raises new security issues)
The APTN tape shows an officer hitting Davis at least four times in the head outside a bar. Davis twisted and flailed as he was dragged to the ground by several officers. Davis's lawyer said his client did not resist.
"I don't think that when a person is getting beat up there's a whole lot of thought. It's survival. You don't have a whole lot of time to think when you're being pummeled," Bruno said.
Davis was kneed and pushed to the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter. The officers accused of striking Davis were identified as Schilling and Evangelist.
TV producer roughed up
Mayor Ray Nagin said, "I don't know what the gentleman did, but whatever he did, he didn't deserve what I saw on tape."
During the arrest, another officer, identified as Smith, ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and a cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.
Police said Davis was booked on public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation.
The head of the New Orleans police union said the officers told him they had acted appropriately.
"They feel they were justified in their actions and they were using the amount of force necessary to overcome the situation," Lt. David Benelli told WDSU in New Orleans.
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-10-nobeating_x.htm
Published on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The National Guard Belongs in New Orleans
and Biloxi. Not Baghdad.
by Norman Solomon
The men and women of the National Guard shouldn’t be killing in Iraq.
They should be helping in New Orleans and Biloxi.
The catastrophic hurricane was an act of God. But the U.S. war effort in Iraq is a continuing act of the president. And now, that effort is hampering the capacity of the National Guard to save lives at home.
Before the flooding of New Orleans drastically escalated on Tuesday, the White House tried to disarm questions that could be politically explosive. “To those of you who are concerned about whether or not we’re prepared to help, don’t be, we are,” President Bush said. “We’re in place, we’ve got equipment in place, supplies in place, and once the -- once we’re able to assess the damage, we’ll be able to move in and help those good folks in the affected areas.”
Echoing the official assurances, CBS News reported: “Even though more than a third of Mississippi’s and Louisiana’s National Guard troops are either in Iraq or supporting the war effort, the National Guard says there are more than enough at home to do the job.”
But after New Orleans levees collapsed and the scope of the catastrophe became more clear, such reassuring claims lost credibility. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday: “With thousands of their citizen-soldiers away fighting in Iraq, states hit hard by Hurricane Katrina scrambled to muster forces for rescue and security missions yesterday -- calling up Army bands and water-purification teams, among other units, and requesting help from distant states and the active-duty military.”
The back-page Post story added: “National Guard officials in the states acknowledged that the scale of the destruction is stretching the limits of available manpower while placing another extraordinary demand on their troops -- most of whom have already served tours in Iraq or Afghanistan or in homeland defense missions since 2001.”
Speaking for the Mississippi National Guard, Lt. Andy Thaggard said: “Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people.” According to the Washington Post, the Mississippi National Guard “has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq” while “Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.”
National Guard troops don’t belong in Iraq. They should be rescuing and protecting in Louisiana and Mississippi, not patrolling and killing in a country that was invaded on the basis of presidential deception. They should be fighting the effects of flood waters at home -- helping people in the communities they know best -- not battling Iraqi people who want them to go away.
Let’s use the Internet today to forward and post this demand so widely that the politicians in Washington can no longer ignore it:
Bring the National Guard home. Immediately.
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com
Katrina Adds to Military Strain
Associated Press | September 04, 2005
WASHINGTON - President Bush's decision to put thousands of active-duty soldiers and Marines on Hurricane Katrina relief duty adds a new dimension to the enormous strain on the military from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senior military officers said Saturday they have plenty of troops to handle their wide range of missions at home and abroad, and they discounted suggestions that the urgent deployment of soldiers and Marines to the Gulf Coast would interfere with the rotation of combat troops in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We can handle the overseas war-fight commitment and still defend our homeland and support the Department of Homeland Security simultaneously," Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told a Pentagon news conference. "People say, 'Aren't you stretched too far, aren't you about ready to run out?' There are 200,000 citizen soldier National Guardsmen left with the right kind of skills around this nation" to help with hurricane relief, Blum said.
The active-duty military has about 1.2 million people in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, of which about 140,000 are in Iraq and nearly 20,000 in Afghanistan. That leaves hundreds of thousands not committed directly to fighting wars, but many of them perform a range of staff functions in the Pentagon and other government agencies and at military headquarters across the nation and around the world.
Lt. Gen. Joseph Inge, deputy commander of Northern Command, told reporters at the Pentagon on Saturday that the Katrina mission would have no negative effect on executing the missions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Absolutely not," Inge said.
The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, said that while he has been personally assured by Pentagon officials that the Gulf Coast rescue and recovery effort can be accomplished without disrupting plans for Iraq rotations, he remains worried about the future.
"This effort will clearly increase the overall burden on our military," Skelton said Friday. "The Defense Department's civilian leaders must look at the impact of this and future crises and the ongoing war on the military's future readiness and overall state."
Inge said the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, which already has several infantry battalions in Afghanistan and Iraq or preparing to go there, began dispatching about 2,500 soldiers, including infantry, and support troops, to Louisiana on Saturday. They included most of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
A spokeswoman for the 82nd Airborne, Maj. Amy Hannah, said later that at least 5,000 would be sent from her division. Another spokesman there, Spc. John French, said 5,000 would be sent over the next few days.
The 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Hood, Texas, is sending about 2,700 soldiers to the Gulf Coast, and the Marines are sending about 2,000 from bases in California and North Carolina. The 4th Infantry Division, which is getting ready to begin a new deployment to Iraq, already has sent some helicopters to Louisiana.
The Air Force is flying missions to the Gulf daily, and the Navy has numerous ships off the Gulf Coast.
Blum said the National Guard was going to send 10,000 more troops than previously planned, bringing the total number of Guardsman involved in the relief effort to 40,000 within the next several days. He said there would be 33,000 in Louisiana and Mississippi by the end of Saturday.
In addition to deployments in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the National Guard is heavily committed to the conflict in Iraq. The Army National Guard has 39,800 soldiers in Iraq and the Air National Guard has about 900. That represents about 30 percent of all U.S. forces in Iraq. Thousands also are operating in Kuwait.
Blum said the only Guard unit he knows of that has been pulled off the list to rotate into Iraq is a small unit whose members live in Gulfport, Miss., which was heavily battered by Hurricane Katrina.
"Many of them, we can't find them," Blum said. A Guard infantry unit that was training at Camp Shelby, Miss., when Katrina struck has been kept off disaster relief duty so that it can deploy to Iraq as scheduled, Blum said.
Troops Back From Iraq Find Another War Zone
In New Orleans, 'It's Like Baghdad on a Bad Day'
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Page A10
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 5 -- Spec. Frank Atkinson, wearing his tan desert fatigues from his recent deployment in Iraq, alternately drove a Humvee through downtown New Orleans streets littered with debris and putrid garbage and held suspected looters at gunpoint with his M-4 rifle.
"It's just so much like Iraq, it's not funny," said Atkinson, of Woodlawn, Ark., "except for all the water, and they speak English.
Military personnel patrol
St. Charles Street in New Orleans, where residents
fearful of looters have been shouting to passing Humvees
to alert the soldiers to crimes in progress.
(By Shannon Stapleton -- Reuters)
For a year ending this spring, Atkinson's infantry company of the Arkansas National Guard patrolled Baghdad's deadly Haifa Street, and scores of its members were awarded Purple Heart medals after fighting insurgents. Those war-zone images and instincts came flooding back Friday when Atkinson and 300 other Arkansas guardsmen, wearing helmets and full body armor, rolled into the chaos of central New Orleans.
"It's like Baghdad on a bad day," said Spec. Brian McKay, 19, of Mount Ida, Ark.
The Arkansas contingent is among the estimated 16,000 National Guard troops from 40 states flowing into greater New Orleans to help curb the rash of crime sparked by Hurricane Katrina. An additional 24,000 guardsman and 7,200 active-duty ground troops are committed to relief efforts across the Gulf Coast.
Paratroops from the 82nd Airborne Division "locked down" the historic French Quarter on Monday, according to city and military officials.
But the massive military effort remains severely disjointed and hampered by a lack of basic communication between units, Army officers here say. Ground commanders for New Orleans have been functioning without the ability to track the location of some units reporting to them -- something unheard of in Iraq, the officers say.
Much work remains for U.S. soldiers in this gutted no man's land, where looting, drive-by shootings and other crime are rampant. Much as in Iraqi cities, the troops are moving by the hundreds into makeshift bases in schools and other public buildings, setting up checkpoints and 24-hour patrols. The guardsmen have been authorized to seize weapons and detain people.
"We're having some pretty intense gun battles breaking out around the city," said Capt. Jeff Winn of the New Orleans police SWAT team. "Armed gangs of from eight to 15 young men are riding around in pickup trucks, looting and raping," he said. Residents fearful of looters often shout to passing Humvees to alert the soldiers to crimes in progress.
"Hey, stop!" a man wearing a baseball cap yelled to an Arkansas Guard team Sunday afternoon as it drove through the city's Metairie district in Jefferson Parish. "Those people don't live here!" he said, pointing to a white sports car parked outside a large brick home.
Atkinson sped over to the car, hopped out and pointed at it with his M-4 rifle. He and Capt. Derald Neugebauer, 36, of Vilonia, Ark., questioned the two men about looting -- but because they had no radio communication with the New Orleans police, they had to flag down a passing patrol car to hand over the two men.
About an hour later, as dusk fell, Atkinson and Neugebauer were driving down Jefferson Street when the owner of a mini-storage business yelled at them from behind his fence. "Hey, get back here! Those guys just broke into that store!" Across the street, the guardsmen saw two men in their twenties outside a car stereo store with the front window broken in.
Atkinson again swung the Humvee around, and within minutes, the guardsmen had two of the four suspects facedown on the Jefferson Street median. The guardsmen then waved down a passing sheriff's vehicle.
"When I charged a round in the chamber, he got down real fast," Atkinson said later of a suspect.
The guardsmen voiced little hesitation at using deadly force -- a skill honed in Iraq -- on the streets of New Orleans. "If we're out on the streets, we'll fight back and shoot until we kill them. That's too bad but that's what has got to happen," said Spec. Jake Perry, 20, of Camden, Ark. "I didn't spend a year in Iraq to come to Louisiana and get killed."
Indeed, just the smell and feel of a war zone in the city put the soldiers on edge.
"The worst feeling was putting that body armor on," said Spec. Richard Dunlop, 36, also of Camden, who with his comrades has vivid memories of the dozens of Arkansas soldiers who perished in Iraq. "I find myself checking the rooftops. I worry about stepping on something in case it is an IED," he said, referring to an improvised explosive device or roadside bomb.
"I was waiting on a gunfight," he said. "It's weird."
Many of the guardsmen were shocked and angered by the violence and looting. One described 70-year-old women in new Nike high-tops, and stores along the riverfront that looked bombed out.
"The fear in the eyes of the people, the uncertainty . . . people shooting and killing over little bitty things . . . it surprised me. I didn't think it would be that bad in my own country," said McKay, a history student at the University of Arkansas.
But the soldiers said they were gratified to be able to evacuate so many needy -- from elderly residents in wheelchairs, lifted into the backs of U-Haul trucks, to drug addicts jittery from withdrawal.
Meanwhile, conditions for the troops were no better than for New Orleans residents. They slept outdoors on concrete loading docks, living on bottled water and packaged military meals that many flood victims wouldn't eat. They had virtually no power, and initially no portable toilets.
While some Arkansas guardsmen said they had volunteered for hurricane duty, many felt wearied by the back-to-back deployments. "I'm still stressed out. I'm still having nightmares over Iraq -- give me a break!" said guardsman Dominic Nettles.
Sitting in a warm breeze on the riverfront on a recent night, as fish leapt out of the Mississippi and a fire blazed out of the blackness on a distant shore, Nettles and his buddies smoked cigarettes and traded war stories that transported them back to the banks of the Tigris.
"When I came down here, it was just like I was in Iraq. It was unreal," said Spec. Keithean Heath, 20, of Crossett, Ark., shirtless in the heat. "This doesn't happen in your own back yard."
2005 The Washington Post Company
After a year in Iraq:
Louisiana National Guard Troops
Heading Home to Face Tragedy
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press writer
CAMP VICTORY, Kuwait (AP) - Hundreds of soldiers from a New Orleans National Guard unit begin leaving Thursday to return to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Guard officials said 80 percent lost homes or jobs and some had not heard from relatives since the storm.
A Pentagon team led by Brig. Gen. Sean Byrne flew into this U.S. base in the Kuwaiti desert to help ease the Louisiana's unit redeployment home.
Speaking Wednesday to 150 soldiers sitting on plywood benches in a tent billowing in the wind, Byrne told them that if their homes are gone and their families scattered and homeless, the Army will help.
"The focus isn't necessarily on the Army right now. The focus is on you and your family," said Byrne, director of military personnel management.
In the audience, Sgt. John Roger, 30, said his wife and two children survived the storm by fleeing to Kansas in his pickup truck to stay with his in-laws. A neighbor stranded on her roof told the family she watched flood waters carry off its three-bedroom, cypress-wood house.
"She saw my house float past her. She took a picture of it," Roger said in a Cajun drawl. "They said the water came in so fast down there, it swept everything away. I lost everything I own, except my truck."
The house once sat between a pair of moss-draped oaks in lower St. Bernard Parish, outside New Orleans. Asked where his house was now, Roger said: "I don't know. Probably in the Gulf somewhere."
Soldiers like Roger - who survived 10 roadside explosions and had a friend killed by a suicide bomber - were already stressed from a year of combat west of Baghdad. Now they face a different kind of trauma: families made homeless, communities devastated.
Over the next two weeks, the 3,700 soldiers of the Louisiana Guard's 256th Brigade Combat Team will be flown to a former military airport in Alexandria, La., and then travel to nearby Fort Polk.
Of the U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 256th was hit hardest by Katrina, particularly Roger's New Orleans-based unit, the 1st Battalion, 141st Field Artillery Regiment.
The brigade has 545 soldiers "drastically" affected by the disaster, and almost 300 of those are in the artillery battalion, said Lt. Col. Debbie Haston-Hilger, U.S. military spokeswoman in Kuwait.
Fifty battalion soldiers still hadn't been able to contact some relatives as of Monday, Haston-Hilger said. Some family members are thought to have perished.
The Mississippi National Guard's 155th Brigade Combat Team, based in western Iraq, had 300 soldiers affected by the disaster, Haston-Hilger said. The 155th isn't scheduled to finish its tour until January.
The Pentagon has sent a team led by a two-star general to Fort Polk to prepare for the arrival of the 256th, helping with requests for relief, insurance settlements, mental health counseling and housing.
"They're waiting to go home and they're facing a whole lot of uncertainty," Byrne said. "We're here to try to mitigate that uncertainty."
Byrne and his Pentagon comrades laid out options for the Louisianans, recommending that rather than return quickly to a disrupted civilian life, they remain on active duty at Fort Polk and bring their families there to stay. Byrne said the soldiers could also enlist in the regular Army.
"If you go back to Louisiana or Mississippi and your house is gone, it gives you another option," he said. Roger, a welder, said he would go to Kansas, where his wife has enrolled their children in school. But he said he prefers bayou life and will go back eventually.
"You got so many ties down there, so many friends," he said. "It's a way of life. It's hard to say to hell with it."
Sep 07 9:58 PM
©2005 Associated Press.
Was Racial Bias Behind U.S.
Government Failure in New Orleans?
By Askia Muhammad
White House Correspondent
Updated Sep 8, 2005, 05:20 pm
(L-r) General Richard Meyers, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff;
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld;
President George Bush; and Michael Chertoff,
Secretary of Homeland Security
in the Rose Garden Sept. 3.
Photo: Askia Muhammad
THE WHITE HOUSE (FinalCall.com) - It was a picture perfect morning in the Rose Garden. Blue skies. Bright sun. The temperature was 74 degrees Fahrenheit, with low humidity. The hum of the cicadas in the trees rose and fell the way it does in late summer mornings in this Potomac basin, even as President George Bush, flanked by his national security inner circle, walked to the podium Sept. 3.
But Mr. Bush may not have noticed the pleasant weather because he was surrounded by dark political storm clouds that threaten to inundate his presidency the way Hurricane Katrina decimated Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Mr. Bush was there to deliver his Saturday radio address live, for network and cable television transmission as well.
As the images of tens of thousands of suffering, starving, mostly Black faces poured out of New Orleans in the days leading up to this second appearance in the Rose Garden in two days, once again Mr. Bush wanted to show his grave concern for the victims of the worst natural disaster in American history by staging the five-minute radio speech live.
“The human costs are incalculable,” he began. “The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities,” he continued. “The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable.”
And that is an understatement, to say the least.
But Mr. Bush’s speech fell short of addressing the deep sense of betrayal felt, especially by Blacks and the poor. “Why did it take so long,” a Los Angeles Times reporter shouted as Mr. Bush walked back to the Oval Office without further comment.
There was a monumental failure of the government—White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—which contributed directly to the loss of life and prolonged the suffering of the survivors.
The ordeal was ghastly to watch. Ironically, television networks were able to get in the city and broadcast pictures, but the neither the National Guard (one third of Louisiana’s Guard units were deployed in Iraq) nor active-duty service members of the “world’s mightiest military” were able to get in the city to deliver any relief to the suffering masses, 99 percent of whom appeared to be Black.
It was “shocking and awful,” Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) told reporters Sept. 2 at the National Press Club, comparing the effect of the hurricane on the U.S. Crescent City with the U.S. military description of its invasion and occupation of Iraq.
What happened after Hurricane Katrina was a total non-response on the part of the federal government for at least two days.
The world was left to see pictures of tormented Black faces, death and destruction all around them. Relief was nowhere to be seen for those U.S. citizens, some of whom are family members of troops in U.S. military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. Black people watching the suffering, the descent into chaos, anarchy and looting, could not believe their eyes. Local officials were enraged.
“We have been abandoned by our own country,” Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., said on “Meet The Press” Sept. 4. “Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.
“It´s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now,” Mr. Broussard continued, before telling a tearful story of a woman—whose own son is a top FEMA manager—who drowned after days of pleading with her own son for help, which never arrived. He sobbed uncontrollably.
The response to the catastrophe, which had been predicted for years, amounts to a “test of the moral compass” of the nation, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) told reporters Sept. 2 at the National Press Club. “We cannot allow it to be said by history, that the difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age or skin color.”
Federal officials at first confessed their initial unreadiness.
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) admitted on CNN that, until the afternoon of Sept. 1, he didn’t even know that 15,000 evacuees had obeyed FEMA instructions and were sweltering in 90-degree heat with no water or toilets, and with dead decomposing bodies all around them at the New Orleans Convention Center.
Later that same day, FEMA’s deputy director told NBC “Nightly News” that officials at the agency were distracted for a time with concerns about looting and the protection of property, before they comprehended the humanitarian disaster.
Later, federal officials and Republicans began shifting the blame to local and state officials. They insisted that local and Louisiana state officials are the designated “first responders,” and they accused the Democratic governor and mayor of New Orleans of not sounding the alarm soon enough.
However, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had, in fact, made an urgent official request three days before the storm, according to Rep. Cummings, “for some kind of a special designation from FEMA, which would have had the buses taking people out, three days before the storm,” Mr. Cummings told The Final Call in an exclusive interview. “It sat on a desk and didn’t even get looked at until after the storm had hit.
“This has got to be a wake-up call for us, as African American people, from another perspective,” he continued. “That is, if we believe that the government is going to always be there for our rescue, we need to re-think that. Because I don’t want us to be in a position where we’re not doing for self, when we can. And this is the perfect situation for that lesson to be learned.”
Thank You, Kanye! by Fanon Che Wilkins, Ph.D. (BlackElectorate.com, 09-05-2005)
